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Thread: Planks and other stuff interfering with recovery?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jun 2018
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    25

    Default Planks and other stuff interfering with recovery?

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    Hi Coach and everybody,

    I'm a 62 year old male, doing SS for about a year now. I gave up planks when I started the program, but for some reason did a straight plank two days ago - I guess I wanted to see if I could do one for as long as I used to do them (two minutes) after not doing them for a year. (Since I could, and two minutes feels like a long time to me, I concluded that the program has been working the core pretty well.)

    But today, two days later, I had a bad day: starting with my squats I felt like I was "starting on empty" as I think Dr. Sullivan puts it, and the back felt just a bit stiffer than usual. Squats felt awful. Then for the deadlifts it was supposed to be a heavy day, but I could barely squeeze out one rep for my last warmup! (at a weight where I can usually do 2 sets of 5 easily). And forget the work set, that didn't happen. (Usually when I fail at the work set, either completely or a rep or two, I do a backoff set or two - but this was a warmup I failed at, and I was just too bummed and drained.)

    My back had felt slightly stiffer than usual in the days since doing the planks. Could those two minutes of planking have had such an effect on everything two days later?

    As a related question, on the same day as the planks I did the press and also bicep curls and the tricep machine, this was two days ago. My programming is in flux, but right now the unchangeable thing is I do squats and deadlifts two days a week (for deadlifts one day light, one heavy). Because workouts can be long I will sometimes omit the press etc. and come back another day. This week I did my light deadlifts on Sunday, which would give me a lot of recovery until today, Thursday, but I wonder if my throwing in the press and biceps and triceps two days ago interfered with that recovery - those exercises also seem to stress the back. Would I be wise to leave a decent lead-up to the heavy deadlift day free and clear, and to do the press and any silly exercises only in the lead-up to the light deadlift day?

    For the record, before this I had switched to heavy deadlifts every ten days, with one set of lights in between, but that felt like too long of a stretch and I had a big stall, though that could have been for other reasons - anyway now I'm trying going back to two days a week, one heavy one light. I might have missed something, but in The Barbell Prescription I don't think I found any mention of as much as ten days between deadlifts, which might be consistent with the idea that we older people detrain more quickly? Or does such a schedule have it's place? One thing I totally hate about that schedule is that if I have a subpar heavy day, I have to wait ten days! And I especially feel the threat of detraining is real if I didn't accomplish my intended work set.

    I plan to try my heavy day again on Sunday, only three days from now, with the idea that today doesn't count as a heavy day - although maybe it should, taking back fatigue into account ....

    Any thoughts appreciated.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    North Texas
    Posts
    53,559

    Default

    The older you get, the less forgiving you'll find stupid shit to be.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jun 2018
    Posts
    25

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe View Post
    The older you get, the less forgiving you'll find stupid shit to be.
    Okay (and I'm not sucking up here) that quote is going on my refrigerator.

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